Senate Voting on Real ID Today

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Monday May 09, 2005 · 9:52 PM PDT

2005/05/09 · 21:52

I was this close to shutting down the computer and crawling into my cozy bed, but one more refresh of my email revealed a new message from Damon of Nmazca blog. The title of the email was "R U ready to write about Real ID?" Um, maybe later...like after some sleep? Alas, I discovered that time is not on our side here, so in the interest of saving the world from the forces of evil, I am posting this before I turn in. Sorry if it's a duplicate, but I'd rather this got too much coverage than too little:

Let's be real about Real ID

"This Tuesday [that's tomorrow, peoples], the US Senate is scheduled to vote on the implementation of a national ID card system. The Real ID Act is nothing less than a National ID Act. The only thing left to the individual states is to decide which pretty picture they will choose to put on the card: everything else will be controlled by [the federal government]...

"In order to make [Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI] happy, the Senate leadership let him write the bill and then slipped it into [the emergency military spending] bill... Supporting our troops means making sure they come home to a free nation, not a surveillance state."

The opening statement of UnRealID.com, where you can (must!) contact your state's senators.

Damon's own comments, as posted on Nmazca blog, are as follows:

"A more effective method for making the country secure is to be more mindful and diligent about screening those who enter the country. Taking a step to mandate that all US citizens be enrolled into a national database, and then have an open-ended amount of data on display and downloadable by whomever might ask for identification, will do very little to make the citizens of this country more safe. It will simply make them more monitored and traceable; more open or vulnerable to unwanted marketing, possible discrimination and intimidation, and even identity theft (since the technology that the Department of Homeland Security is likely to adopt, RFID, is susceptible to interception).

"Please reject this legislation, even though it's part of the military spending bill. I personally don't think that invading Iraq made the world or this country any safer, and I think that measures like this -- oriented more toward control and coercion of the nation's citizenry instead controlling those who, we're told, are working against our interests and security -- will result in nothing more than an increased sense insecurity, resentment and suspicion."

http://www.unrealid.com/

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